Social Media Weekly Analysis: WEEK 9 NRL Finals Series 2020
Image: NRL Telstra Premiership Finals Series 2020. Source: nrl.com
What was the campaign?
The NRL Finals series campaign was played over four weekends in October, culminating in the 2020 NRL Grand Final on 25 October 2020 at ANZ Stadium. The Grand Final was ultimately won by the second-placed Melbourne Storm, who defeated the minor premiers the Penrith Panthers.
Image: NRL Finals Series draw / finals games system.
Who was leading the campaign? Who was involved?
The National Rugby League (NRL) in partnership with Telstra and Foxtel, were leading the finals series campaign.
Many other sponsors such as KFC, Harvey Norman, Hisense, vb and many more sponsors were involved in the success of this campaign.
Major broadcasting services such as Channel 9 and foxtel were able to showcase the NRL Finals series. Kayo was also a major streaming partner for this campaign.
Image: NRL’s two major streaming platforms for the series.
How did they set out to do the campaign? What tools were used?
NRL and all of its major sponsors used bright, colourful and interactive social media strategies to bring in fans of the game on their social media channels.
Videos of highlights from the year, player v player comparisons, and photos of the finals bracket all the way up to the Grand Final left NRL’s fans engaged and responsive to their content.
NRL are notorious for using hashtags on all of its posts in order to gain attraction to its channels.
Infographics are a major benefit to NRL’s social media, team vs team comparisons with stats of the teams and their form in the competition leading up to the finals series and within the finals series.
Image: Nathan Brown (Parramatta Eels) v Cameron Murray (Sydney Rabbitohs) Facebook post by @nrl
Image: NRL Facebook post engaging fans opinions on what team is going to get through for the NRL Grand final.
Where was the campaign seen?
The campaign was seen on all of NRL’s major social media channels such as: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
The campaign was also shown on Television and major newspapers across Australia.
Video: Panthers v Storm | Grand Final | Telstra Premiership | #NRL
Critical reflection, was the campaign successful?
NRL Finals series campaign was extremely successful with most of its finals series games selling out and its social media engagement going through the roof.
NRL’s social media team had significant contribution to the success of this campaign, with interacting posts and engaging content for users and fans of the competition.
Social media posts regarding the competitions finals series were made daily with at least 10+ posts a day informing fans.